


Goo-d Food Speaks for Itself

by Cullhach



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: And They Don't Speak Each Others Language, Food Goo (Voltron), Gen, Grand Theft Spaceship, Mentions of Other Voltron Paladins, Misunderstandings, Prompt: Food Sharing, Space Pirates, they get stranded
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2020-07-25 00:18:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20023408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cullhach/pseuds/Cullhach
Summary: When the translators (and everything else) go down, Keith and Coran have to complete their mission without being able to understand each other.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’m going backpacking for the rest of the week, so here’s tomorrow’s prompt, a day early and a dollar— over?
> 
> I've always loved the idea of people figuring out how to understand each other without speaking the same language, so here we are.

As is the fate of all _supposed-to-be-simple_ missions, this one had gone fantastically wrong within a matter of minutes; a new record in Keith’s book.

Usually it took at least half an hour.

They were here in the first place because the food goo replicator had gone down in a literal blaze of glory, scorching the entire kitchen and taking several drawers of supplies with it. As far as Hunk had been able to explain it, the machines equivalent to a hard drive had fried, and now that a new one had been installed, it didn’t know how to make food goo (which they found out was actually a recipe that was handed down through Coran’s family from generation to generation). 

(No one was really surprised by that last piece of information).

Hunk, Lance, and Pidge wanted to program the new machine to spit out cheeseburgers (Shiro hadn’t said anything, but Keith could see the need in his eyes). Coran, however, had gone on about “perfect nutritional balance” and “most average palatable texture between species,” and after Shiro pointed out that the nozzle wasn’t going to be capable of spitting out a burger unless they wanted it pre-chewed, they’d reluctantly agreed that Coran could have his way.

They needed ingredients, though. The replicator had to be fed the thing it was supposed to make before it could replicate it, and since their ingredients were all incinerated or ten thousand years old, they’d split up to gather fresh ones. 

Keith was the lucky one who got paired with the mastermind himself, and while he appreciated the altean, and honestly cared about him as a sort of weird uncle figure, he just didn’t understand what the guy was saying most of the time. 

Lance would have been a better choice for this team. To top it all off, not five minutes after setting down onto the strange planet they’d been hit by some sort of EMP. 

The comms were down, their shuttle was down, and they weren't expected back for several hours. Slightly more problematic was the fact that the wave they’d been hit with had wiped out whatever universal translator it was that allowed the alteans to communicate with the humans.

Keith had thought Coran was speaking gibberish before. This, however, was next level.

“Zis loi ox dis juto pit cenuctlum,” Coran muttered, twirling his moustache as he poked around inside of an open panel. “Pum pen’t foriovo zis dis semothick zaxat caxan fo bixow fupp twichick axaleuct pit bod wilos, vupp feupp.”

Keith stared at him blankly, brow creased in concentration, but to no avail. He had no idea what the altean was saying.

Coran turned back, closing the panel with a resigned finality that Keith _did_ understand. They weren’t going anywhere soon, not until the others decided they had been gone for too long. 

They stood in awkward silence for a few seconds, eyeing each other. Keith shuffled, and Coran scratched his head. 

Keith cleared his throat. “We could still try to gather the stuff we came here for?” He offered.

Coran stared.

Keith looked around for inspiration, eyes snagging on the bags they brought to carry their findings in. He walked over, picking the bag up and gesturing out into the field of boulders surrounding them. “Might as well accomplish something while we’re stuck here?” He mimed placing things into the bag. 

Coran face lit up in understanding. “Eb ceulso! Caxan’t rot pit rittro sotfaxang riko zis chep us!” Coran grabbed a bag of his own and slapped Keith on the back as he passed. “Keew vaxan.”

Keith shrugged and followed.

He had no idea what they were looking for, so he trailed after Coran. They’d listed the ingredients before splitting into teams, of course, but Keith had figured Coran would know what he was looking for and could instruct him further once they’d landed. 

Too late now.

“Zis flicks faxang vomelios eb hon vupp klaxactbaxathol fleudd vo axareck te kaxathol dicklodionks bel zo bilch timo.” Coran sighed wistfully, arm gesturing around for emphasis.

Keith would recognize that tone of voice anywhere. He wilted, readying himself for a long monologue. Honestly, he didn’t understand what Coran was saying half the time even when they were speaking the same language. Maybe this trip wouldn’t be so different after all.

“Dit loi ox dis tee faxad,” Coran continued, “Haxat um vo foick zo raxach dolsen he gnews zis locipo.” He poked around near the base of a boulder for a moment, before shaking his head and moving on. 

Both of the alteans had picked up on head nods and shakes, Keith realized with a start. So there was that. Yes and No were still on the table.

Coran smiled back at Keith. “Pum suppeso Pum ceurd drito vupp ewn axartoaxan ceekfeet; sorr dit bel pit girrick.” He waggled his eyebrows.

Keith froze, unsure. That hadn’t sounded like a question, but he may have been tuning out a little bit.

“Ah, fut ug pen’t uctolchaxact haxat Pum’v saxayick.” 

Keith shrugged, shaking his head in an attempt to emphasize just how much he didn’t understand anything Coran was saying. It was frustrating. Social interactions were hard enough in English.

Coran tutted quietly. “Pum wiskow te whaxavo cenkinuow te paxapt dit pewn vupp baxamirupp rino, fut zaxat timo whaxas cemo pi keno ton zeusaxact yoaxals pi pit whoaxaltaxasto axage.” 

It was Keith’s turn to cock his head. Coran usually sounded a lot more excited when he was telling a story. 

They continued on, this time in relative silence, broken only by the crunch of rock underfoot as they examined each boulder for— something. Keith was no stranger to silence; appreciated it even, more than most people he knew. He’d spent a lot of time in the quiet, and it suited him. It did not, however, suit Coran.

“I used to live in a place like this,” Keith offered, finally, and Coran tilted his ear to listen despite their language barrier.

“When I was younger we lived out in the desert. Our house was actually pretty close to where the Blue Lion was hidden.” Keith looked up at the violet sky. “It was mostly just long stretches of brush, but sometimes there were rocks like this. Mostly when you got closer to the canyons. I miss it sometimes.”

Keith hesitated, then reached down to pick up a small orange rock, distinct from the greys and reds surrounding them. “Hey, it’s the same color as your moustache.” He held it up for Coran to see.

Coran made grabby hands, and Keith tossed it to him. Keith pointed between the rock and Coran’s moustache, earning a wide grin. Coran puffed up and twirled his moustache with a wink; the connection there was pretty obvious no matter what language you spoke.

“It’s also the same color as the rocks where I lived.” Keith continued, a little jolt of homesickness twisting his stomach.

Coran smiled fondly at the rock, pocketing it as they trudged along. 

“Zolo dit dis!” Coran warbled a moment later, skipping ahead with his bag billowing behind him like a cape. 

Keith trotted to catch up, not sure what was happening. Coran came to a stop in front of a gigantic pink boulder that had bright green— _something—_ coating the bottom of the shaded surfaces. 

"Zis dis axalguaxafrupp zo vech dimpeltaxank dicklodionk,” Coran wagged a finger at Keith. “Zis dis holo zo locipo kots dits cerel pi vech eb dits poricaxato braxavel!”

The altean seemed pretty serious. Was this substance somehow dangerous? Keith eyeballed the slimy goop. It definitely _looked_ dangerous.

Coran crouched down, scooping a finger full of the stuff and taking a long whiff of it with a satisfied hum. “Jed zaxat’s keew chubb!” He spun around to show Keith before wiping it into his bag. 

Wait, this was what they came for? Keith recoiled in disgust. This explained _everything_ about food goo. He swallowed, doing everything he could to avoid smelling the stuff as he scooped handful after tentative handful into the bag.

Coran knew best, he supposed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coran's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coran is the actual best.

Number four made a face that bore a striking, if somewhat exaggerated, similarity to that of a urmulian stoggfish. Coran chuckled, flattered. He’d always known that Keith had a good head on his shoulders (the haircut was his first clue) so of course he would appreciate the scent of doolaung slime mold.

It took nearly two vargas of scooping and scraping, but as his grandfather used to say, if something wasn’t worth one varga, it definitely wasn’t worth three. By the inverse of that logic, if something was worth doing for one varga, it was probably also worth doing for two.

He would have to write that down in his book of adages when they got back to the castleship.

“Tu fa yldiymmo haat dfu pykc vimm?” Keith asked, slinging his own bag over a shoulder and gesturing at Coran’s, eyebrow raised. “E druikrd fa uhmo haatat ahuikr du syga uha pydlr.” 

Coran smiled, tying off his own bag with a flourish. “No, my boy. I can carry my own bag, though I thank you for the thought.” The Paladins were incredibly helpful and kind, but he wasn’t old, not by a long shot, and he’d have to be in a whole world of a lot more lower back pain before he’d let number four take the sack from him, by Grogory. It was a matter of dignity.

Keith sighed, a little whooshing sound that Coran had noticed all five of the humans liked to make at times, though he wasn’t entirely sure what it meant, if anything at all. At first he’d worried that they were having trouble breathing, but then he’d noticed several patterns that made him suspect the sound was intentional. Where Number One seemed to make the sound mainly in response to Number Three and Four bickering, Number Two made it when he was especially pleased with food. Number Three made it when he would sit on the observation deck staring into space, and Number Four usually made it in response to Number Three’s antics. Number Five made the whooshing sound when she was tired, though her whooshing sound was more exaggerated and prolonged and possibly not even the same thing. All of it left Coran with even less of an idea of what the sound meant than before he’d started trying to puzzle it out. 

They were nearly back to the shuttle when Coran’s exceptionally excellent hearing (even by Altean standards, dare he say it) picked up on some voices ahead. He stopped, holding out an arm to signal Number Four to stop. Unfortunately, they weren’t voices that he recognized. Best to play it safe. 

Number Four was doing the ol’ forehead wrinkle, so Coran covered his mouth with all four of his fingers, signaling the need for complete silence. The red paladin nodded, shifting into an alert stance, and Coran nodded back, because humans liked the confirmation. 

They crept forward, keeping the largest boulders between themselves and the voices. A few minutes of expert skulking found them crouched in a gully, peeking over the rim as several apparent space pirates fiddled with their shuttle.

“Quiznack?” Keith offered, watching Coran’s face closely. 

Coran pressed his mouth into a solid line. It wasn’t an—elegant—way to put it, but Number Four wasn’t wrong. He briefly considered feeling guilty about teaching the Paladins such a word, but then he remembered that learning curse words first was a universal rule for any second language, and the guilt was gone like so much dust in a windstorm. Coran had only expedited the inevitable.

“Quiznack.” He agreed.

The pirates had parked their own larger ship nearby, ramp extending from its belly down to the ground below. Coran had assumed the EMP had been some natural byproduct of the solar system they were currently in (it wasn’t unheard of), but it was looking more and more as though the pirates were the true source. For a ship that size, Coran estimated they’d have a crew of maybe seven or eight—

He paused, heart jumping. There were nine pirates on the ground! The whole crew was on the ground, and it was conceivable that they could pop in quietly while they were distracted and just fly away in it! He danced in place, excited by his incredible, perfect, beautifully genius plan, and quickly turned around and sat down in the gully, followed by Number Four.

He picked up a rock, scratching an impressively life like picture of the ship into the dirt. “Alright my boy, listen up,” he whispered, picking up a bright red pebble and pulling out the orange one Keith had gifted him. “These are us.”

He drew a line representing the gully and placed the red and orange rocks inside. The Red Paladin cocked his head, so Coran pointed between himself and the orange rock before doing the same for Keith and the red one. The Red Paladin nodded his understanding. Coran continued.

“We go for the ramp—” he pushed the colored pebbles to the ship picture, mining them running up the ramp, “—and then we fly away in their ship!” 

Number Four's mouth twitched, eyes glinting, and Coran preened. The best plans were always the simple ones, at least when they weren’t the complex ones. 

He pocketed his orange rock and then paused, offering the red one to Keith. The Red Paladins mouth twitched again, and he carefully placed the stone into his belt pocket before hoisting the bag of slime mold onto his back, bayard at the ready. Coran did the same, and then they were moving.

The pirates didn’t notice them until they were clanging up the metal ramp, and by then it was too late. The Red Paladin paused at the top and slashed out the bottom of his bag with a triumphant “Ayd drec!” The newly freed goop slid out of the bag and down the ramp with a loud slurp, and the pirates slipped and slid off the ramp each time they attempted to board. Wasteful, but effective.

Coran laughed, throwing himself into the pilot's chair before flipping several switches, lightning fast. He hummed along with the engine as the ship lifted smoothly from the ground. He was an excellent pilot, if he did say so himself. 

Keith joined him in the cockpit and they zipped away into the atmosphere to the fading shouts of angry pirates. Coran patted his bag of doolaung slime mold. All in a day's work.

They made a quick stop by the castleship, and a small show of force later (the lions of voltron _were_ small if you took all of time and space into account) got them their shuttle back and a retreating ship full of very apologetic pirates. 

Coran got straight to cooking up a new batch of goo for the replicator once everything was in order, and if Number Four turned a funny color when they had dinner that night, well, Coran figured it was probably an emotional response. He didn’t always understand the humans, but the Red Paladin didn’t have to say anything to express his obvious enjoyment after all the time they’d spent communicating without words. 

As his grandfather used to say, good food speaks for itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> The next chapter will be from Coran's POV.


End file.
